Decoupling definitely helped my Elac 10" Varro Reference series subwoofer. Whenever I was in the basement underneath my sub's location, I could hear my hardwood floors rattling like there was no tomorrow. I decoupled using 4 each 2"x2"x7/8" thick pieces of Diversitech MP-2E Anti-vibration pads. When I'm under my sub's location now, all I hear is music playing...absolutely zero rattling of my hardwood floors. This stuff is "crazy good" at isolating vibrations. Cost for the 4 pieces was about $4 on Amazon. My bass is more controllable now, and more focused with less of a loss of energy wasted on shaking the house apart, lol. (I'm not a fan of rattling the rafters of my house with bass).

A side note that must always be remembered, laws of physics. If they can hear it downstairs, that means that energy is removed from the listening space. Most boundaries (walls, floors,...) disappear below 80-100Hz.

MIke (in Des Moines, Iowa): I recommend you try a Townshend Seismic Vibration Isolation Platform for each of your components. The platforms are designed for the weight of whatever it is that you will be placing on the platform. Also, the platforms come in different sizes, to accommodate the various widths and depths of different stereo components (the feet of the equipment is what matters for your measurements) So you should have the weight of each of your components known, as well as the measurements of the footings of your equipment, if you decided to place an order. If you want to try with only one platform, then I suggest you do so for your pre-amp, because your letter stated that it was tubed based (and it is bad to vibrate tubes). Their platforms work, and will probably exceed most people's expectations. If you have a fairly good system, you will immediately notice a more focused presentation.

I respectfully completely disagree. I do have a stack of 4 Audio Physic subwoofers, I set them on spikes onto a heavy stoneplate, the stone is then coupled to the floor with Valhalla rubberlike pads. This setup gives clearly better, tighter more forceful bass in my room, compared to simply just leaving the subs straight onto a floor. This is also the setup that is advocated by Paolo Tezzon, chief engineer of Sonus Faber. Additionally, I believe this setup gives close to zero mechanical vibration transfer through the floor from the subwoofer.

Paul is bang on with his advice. Don’t decouple your subs. My subs have downfiring drivers, designed to interact with the floor for a more even bass distribution. Part of the sub experience is not only what you hear, but also what you feel, it adds to the realism. Either do as Paul suggests and decouple your preamp, or, invest in some isolation pods and decouple your rack. Most of all, enjoy the music.

In my 2.2 setup I moved the subs up by putting them on cheap IKEA-style "sitting cubes" made of foam wrapped in fake leather. Now the floor vibrations are gone (intended) and indeed the bass response in my room is more even. Was is missing of course is the rumble, but I can happily live without it. I am sure my neighbours are not missing it, either.

I like the sound of decoupled bass. I like the idea of having lots of bass then taming it down or cleaning it up by setting the speakers and subs on granite slabs with floor spikes and sorbothane pads in between the speaker and granite 🔈👍🏻 not quite as much punch but it eliminates some boominess and rattling etc.

I have followed Paul for many years and implemented many of his suggestions into my system. However, in this case I must respectfully disagree agree. When I added a B&W ASW650 sub, I found the bass flabby and ill defined. I added Isoacoustics Iso Pucks. All of a sudden bass guitars sounded like strings being plucked, the mid range voicing opened up and the soundstage resolved into a beautiful large space.

Good sensible and pragmatic answer Paul, thx

I hang my subwoofer from the ceiling on bungee cords.

The comment about what the wife said nearly made me spit out my coffee. Hilarious!

I am on a concrete floor after many years on wood, I added a smaller sub in the near field right behind me to regain that feel, it works well

Thanks for the useful information.

Great video. As a bass player, my 5 string bass guitar can play a fundamental as low as 32hz. There is nothing like feeling that note.

Paul, you're really cranking out content! ...love it!

I did what you say. My receiver would shake, but I Isolated it to maintain sub effects that I adore so much.

I always decouple my subs. Sounds much tighter and I don't need, or want, to rattle the windows.

The approach I took with my 300 pound Legacy Audio Valor speakers (which have built-in down firing and forward fire subs - down to 12Hz) is to place them Townshend Isolation Podiums. I also put my tube integrated amp (acts as power amp) on a Townshend isolation platform. My floor is a suspended wood floor covered by carpet. The problem prior to this addition was that the vibrations caused the floor to act like a speaker, resulting in significant acoustic energy in the room. Once on the isolation podiums, this room energy from the floor was significantly reduced. However, you can feel the sound energy that comes from the speakers, where my sofa does shake and vibrate (and you still feel immersed in the sound). The Isolation Podium isolate above 3Hz. The concept for these platforms was to reduce the vibration coming from the floor to the speaker, where vibrations from car traffic, earthquakes, speakers, etc, would not be transferred to the speaker drivers.

"That's what my wife said" ~ Hilarious!😂but you may have sold me on re-coupling my sub. There is a need for that visceral feel.

I have a similar set up with Maggies and one subwoofer but it's placed across the front wall of my listening room 10 feet from my equipment rack. Even so, it sits on a Symposium anti-vibration platform just in case.

i agree 100%.. but sometimes you cant leave it uncoupled, that killed a terrase door window at my home... so i got soundpath feet, for my pb-1000pro. and the bas is actually sounding better.. i then use a other sub, as a nearfield sub. to get that close tactile feeling.. and im loving it so much

I read some comments and added my own view. I missed the point that the wooden floor is carpeted. This changed my view. If you have a wooden floor, uncarpeted, a sub can raise havoc in the room...the spikes can also damage the wooden floor. The fact that this guy's sub is so close to his electronics, I would suggest sorbothane feet under all his components...if they stand on a wooden rack, think of marble or granite shelves. I built my own rack with 50x50mm square tubing and 5 cheap marble shelves. Then I screwed oak wood strips with felt in between to damp the "ring" of the steel tubing. My system sound like a live performance and the room is 50 square meters with a concrete floor covered by full shaggy carpet. If he has a turntable, a wall shelf to isolate the vibrations and acoustic feedback..

My home theater/music listening room sits over a large crawl space. In fact the crawl space is under our entire home except for the garage. Deep bass shakes the couch but is clean and musical (thanks Audyssey XT-32).

I'm guessing audiophiles like Paul don't listen to a lot of speed metal.

I ask this question .... how well decoupled is that turntable? They are FAR more prone to acoustic feedback than the triode vacuum tubes in a pre amp

Hard driving bass with the room shaking is not a good idea in an apartment which would be impossible for me as my neighbors would shoot me or go to war or start an eviction. Super deep bass is not for everyone! Vibrating floors are great in PSAudio industrial space or in Paul's home if his wife Terry would allow earth shattering bass (I don't think so).

Nice response, Paul. However, I'd like to add a few tidbits if I may. The mere act of couplling a subwoofer really has little/nothing to do directly with visceral impact as one might think. Rather, using superior strategies to couple a subwoofer to the floor has everything to do with the attempt to allow unwanted vibrations to exit/drain from the subwoofer before they can induce their unwanted catastrophic sonic harm on the sub's built-in amp, x-over, power supply, etc. That is the real reason why a subwoofer (or speaker) tightly coupled to the floor will sound more visceral because the bass is actually more natural and hence more musical. In contrast, decoupling a subwoofer from the floor guarantees those unwanted vibrations / resonant energy remain trapped within the sub's cabinet and release all of their unwanted energy somewhere within e.g. the sub's amp internals, x-over, power supply, etc. When implementing superior (as opposed to inferior) executions of the coupling method, the product in this case the subwoofer will sound even more visceral and flat out more musical because the normally trapped vibrations are now able to flow away from the cabinet. One thing to remember is, implementations / executions of vibration mgmt do not change based on weight or component type. IOW, if such a strategy genuinely works for the subwoofer, then the exact same strategy / method will also work for speakers and components alike. Guaranteed. To employ different methods for different components implies laws of nature i.e. energy's behavior changes based on the type of component we're addressing. They do not. And since we're dealing with 3 primary sources of vibrations, though we may successfully isolate our components from one source of vibrations guarantees that at least one other source of vibrations will remain trapped and its game over. When one genuinely hears improvements from a supposedly isolating product, it's actually only because the product is less isolating that the one it replaced. Not because the component is actually more isolated.

lmao, two inches feels like eight 🤣, on the isolation platform. Thanks Paul

Elevate your sub!! Quality over quantity

I got better quality base when I used dampening feet on my 16" sub which is set on hardwood floor, as well as more even bass throughout the room. I don't see why one would worry about the bass getting lower by decoupling since if it does you can just turn the subwoofer up to compensate. I don't think having floor vibration from the cabinet is how to produce proper bass.

Vibrations don't just transfer to equipment through mechanical connections between the floor and the equipment rack. The acoustic pressure waves themselves cause vibration of the tubes and other electronics. There is nothing you can do about that except by locating the electronics and the speakers in separate rooms, as some audiophiles do. An acoustically isolated equipment closet is an example of this.

Another tip for the questioner: put some tube dampers on your preamp’s tubes. They will help reduce the tubes’ microphonics from air borne vibrations.

I isolate my tube preamp with Maple shade products.. yes, Paul, you got it right….

Get dual opposed subwoofers from Arendal or Rythmik. Non issue

ISO Acoustics OREA series!

I was considering hanging my KC62 from the ceiling by fishing line.

Why is uperio right component open? By decoupling of sub, does it to put it on spikes?

Paul, which subwoofer are you using in that room?

Decouple or not to Decouple, that is the question. For me the answer is no, I do not decouple my subs. I know there are people who decouple in an attempt to try and keep the sound transmitting to their next door neighbor, in that case decoupling will have a minor effect IMO. I'm in agreement with Paul, decouple your equipment not speakers. If you're that concerned maybe you can build a isolation box with 2 foot thick insulated walls, Box on pads, and Equipment on pads. That should do it!! 😁🖖

Many people think they can take any subwoofer and make them sound good. it's not that easy! Many bass speaker boxes for regular cinema systems many have at home only have a built-in amplifier and 12dB bass filter. There is nothing that adjusts the sound as flat as possible. You achieve too much in some frequencies which means that it does not provide the requested sound quality together with 2 - 3 way speakers! Remember that a normal speaker has a crossover which in some ways works like a passive EQ. A normal subwoofer does not have this! Large speaker coils that are needed to divide at low frequencies cause phase shift and other negative things. Therefore, an active crossover filter is almost always used, but unfortunately not DSP. with EQ.

If the FR 30 go so low in frequency. Why have a subwoofer especially since the subwoofer doesn’t even go as low in frequency as the FR 30?

I think Paul is missing a point here. The guy is worried about bad vibrations carried over by the wooden floor that can effect the electronics, by semiconductors generating a small current. I would suggest putting the sub on a thick concrete, marble or granite block...but still on the floor. I have a REL Strata in front and a Q150E in the rear. The room(50 square meters) has a concrete floor with thick shaggy wall to wall carpet and the roof/ceiling is granite chip concrete...so I do not have that problem. I know exactly what happen if you put a Rega tt on a wooden rack...the arm jumps.

ISI Acoustics Gaia I or II😊

Why don't the FR-30's come with a built-in sub-woofer? It seems if one is needed, even by your standards, then one should be included, per channel of course, for a slightly higher price to be sure.

Those vibrations can be awesome but what is the ideal effect? Also sound under 20Hz is an interesting subject. Some subwoofers can go below 20Hz and while you don’t hear it as tones, you can feel it.

Yes, soft feets for your sub is the best there is. The bass will become that much better with soft feets. Hell, even your mainspeakers should stand on soft feets.

That's what she said

In my last apartment, I was on the second floor and decouple the subs out of respect for neighbors. In my current place, I am on the first floor and do not decouple.

4:14😂😂😂

my sub is is making a pulsing noise, Does anyone who knows what it can be?.

The ship's crew appear to be mutinying on this topic....

Thats what she said lol

According to *your website* the FR30 does down to 26Hz (-6cB) while the FR20 goes down to 23Hz (-6dB)????? It makes no sense!

I managed to sort both of my subs out for less than £10 🥳 2 x masonry tiles £2 2 x 2" thick density foam £4 can of black spray £3.50 aftet spraying, place the masonry tiles on top of the high density foam and then have the subwoofer(s) sitting on top of your new industrial style isolation pad! If interested one can see them in action within this short 3 minute video... kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hcWWo5uSv8_Ng4E.html

My neighbors think otherwise

All those fancy extravagantly expensive vibration devices 😳🙄 Go to Walmart, buy Play Doh. Roll it up in big balls and place them under the four corners of each speaker. Push it down a little, now you have great vibration protection without the fancy fashion designer Gucci style vibration stands.

I don't like to feel music so much. Once in a while it's OK, but not often.

Common sense and people with clue about acoustics tell you that vibration of the floor is distortion and the subwoofer should be placed 50 cm above the floor - 50 cm membrane absorbers under the subwoofer